Iran's top negotiator to attend Moscow talks

November 10, 2006

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian officials said Thursday that Iran's top nuclear negotiator would be in Moscow for talks today, but his visit appeared unlikely to bring major progress toward ending the international standoff over Tehran's nuclear program. Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said Ali Larijani would hold talks at his ministry and the Russian Security Council. Lavrov said that Russia -- which has repeatedly emphasized it favors negotiations with Iran over punishment -- would push for a rapid start to international talks on the nuclear issue. While Russia has more sway over Iran than European nations that have proposed sanctions to punish Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, its influence over Tehran -- and the willingness to use it -- are limited, analysts said. Moscow has rejected the European-draft sanctions, saying they are too broad and too strong, but Russian nuclear officials have hinted they could postpone the scheduled launch next year of the nuclear power plant they are building in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr -- the nation's first. But analysts said Moscow would draw the line at scrapping the project, which is more than a decade old and worth some $1 billion. "Russia will on no condition agree to stop the construction of Bushehr," said Anton Khlopkov, deputy director of the Moscow-based PIR Center, a think tank that specializes in nonproliferation. Mikhail Margelov, a Kremlin-connected senator in Russia's upper house, said Thursday that Russia was again pressing Iran to accept a proposal under which uranium for its nuclear activities would be enriched on Russian soil. The proposal had been quietly dropped earlier this year after months of fruitless talks.